Anyone But Nick (Anyone But... #3) - Penelope Bloom Page 0,61

I both knew what had happened. Maybe it was time to accept it.

“So, let me get this straight,” Nick said. “We aren’t technically together, because you didn’t technically kiss me on purpose, right? Does that mean if we share an intentional kiss, we’d be together?”

“I wouldn’t call myself an expert or anything. But I think that would hold up in a court of law.”

Nick stood up and walked over to me. In an ideal world, we would’ve still been in the grassy meadow. He would’ve eased me backward onto the soft grass, and little forest fairies would’ve started playing harps from the treetops. Instead, I was pretty sure there were armies of spiders and ants ready to devour me whole if I lay down in the forsaken underbrush, but it apparently didn’t matter. Nick took my face in his hands, bent down slightly, and kissed me so tenderly I thought I’d melt.

His lips were warm velvet against mine. There wasn’t the same passionate, out-of-control hunger from before. This kiss was different. The first had made me want to strip my clothes off and do something reckless. This one made me want to throw away what remained of my emotional armor and let him in. All the years of resistance I’d been putting up to cover my fear of getting hurt again were breaking down with each tender kiss.

“How’s that?” Nick asked when he pulled back.

“I want you to text Cade.” I made no secret of what was going through my mind when I looked up into Nick’s eyes. I wanted him. I was done running from him, and seven years of desire were threatening to explode out of me. As badly as I wanted to let the moment carry us both away, we were in the middle of a scary forest, and I could barely see his face a few inches in front of me.

Nick pulled out his phone.

We eventually heard the distant sounds of Cade calling out for us. I also heard some sort of engine running.

Cade barreled through a patch of bushes on a four-wheeler with ridiculously big wheels. I wasn’t even sure how he’d navigated some of the tighter patches of trees, but I’d learned that Cade always found a way. Especially if that way was stupid with a touch of absurd.

“Didn’t I suggest a horse?” Nick asked.

“I don’t trust horses, especially those two bucktoothed bastards that left you two out here with your dick in your hands. Well, I guess it’s just Nick’s dick, and it’d be in Miranda’s hands—but you get the point.”

“They probably got spooked by something,” Nick said. “It’s not an issue of trust. We should’ve tied them up.”

“That’s what you think,” Cade said. “If you took me out of green pastures where I could shag any stallion I wanted, slapped a saddle on my back, and tried to ride me while wearing stupid hats . . . I’d murder you the first chance I got.”

“Stallions are male horses,” Nick said dryly. “You know that, right?”

“Didn’t ask for trivia night. Do you two want out of here, or do you want to talk more about horse cocks?”

“How are we supposed to all fit on that thing?” I asked.

“Nick gets to cozy up to my firm ass, and you get to kind of cling on to his back like a scared baby monkey. If we all get real tight, I think you’ll have a little bit of something to sit on.”

Hanging on like a scared baby monkey was an unfortunately accurate description of my ride back to the resort. There was about an inch of seat for me to sort of take the weight off my arms, but it meant I was constantly having to push myself into Nick’s back—and coincidentally, his ass—as well as clutching my arms around any part of him that allowed me to hold on. All in all, the experience was equal parts arousing and terrifying.

Cade dropped us off in front of our cabin and stood there with an expectant look. “Okay, so I’m just going to say it. You two went on a romantic horse ride together into the moonlight? Then you tried to hike halfway back before giving up and texting me. Either you got in a big fight, or you got really horny, and you needed a bed. Which one is it? Oh shit. Wait. Or maybe you went skinny-dipping, and one of those jungle fish I read about climbed inside your dick hole. Do you—do you